Last year's unanimously chosen winner was a magical essay about
eider ducks in Iceland.
His winning acrylic depicted a snow - white - and - black
spectacled eider gliding over a dreamy, sunset - lit sea.
Expending considerable ammunition, six or eight shooters can get their limits, often from the same ledge, by midmorning — if not through shooting skill, then by the sheer numbers
of eiders swinging over their decoys.
Certain points on migration routes are known as «
eider passes.»
There, buffeted by the wind and soaked with freezing spray, he suffers and waits
for eiders to come in from the sea to feed.
Many
King Eiders winter mostly at sea, along cold, northern coastlines, so changes to oceans as a result of climate change will have a strong impact on the species.
Brewster Shelter Agent Brian Long performed seven cat - in - tree rescues as well as several different types of injured wildlife from birds to foxes, a skunk caught in a soccer net, a frightened deer in a fenced in tennis court and a wayward
female eider unable to leave an outfall pipe canal at a power plant in Sandwich.
A flock of 25
eiders banks into the wind and heads for the decoys.
Despite their gregarious nature,
eiders become quickly educated to the sound of gunfire.
«Look right to windward of that ledge,» he says, pointing to a raft of perhaps 1,000
eiders bobbing in the chop.
Even when hit with a 12 - gauge magnum load, well - placed,
most eiders require a second shot after they strike the water.
The worst threat to the
nesting eiders on Maine's offshore islands is the black - backed gull, or minister bird.
But there are still more than
enough eiders and other sea ducks, and biologists say they could stand greater gunning, thereby taking some of the pressure off other ducks which are over-gunned.
Long after other waterfowl have been driven down the Atlantic coast by freezing winds, snow and subzero temperatures, huge rafts of
eiders ride the heavy swells offshore, diving to 60 feet and deeper for blue mussels, snails and other mollusks and crustaceans which they grind up with powerful gizzards.
The minister
pierces eider eggs and sucks out the embryos, and it kills a number of fledglings by plucking them right out of the air or beating them to death in the water with its wings.
«
Eiders look as big and as slow as balloons,» says Kelley, «but they're deceiving.
Nantucket Sound is the winter home for large numbers of sea ducks, particularly long - tailed duck (Clangula hyemalis), all three North American scoters, and
common eider.
The wildlife at Rauðasandur is very exciting, seals and the birdlife is teeming with various species
including eider ducks & the arctic tern.
In the later case the female
Eiders pluck down from their own breast to line the nest to keep her offspring warm in the northern arctic circle.
I was planning to
use eider white, which is the next lightest shade, on my trim, but I am afraid it will not be a big enough contrast.
The shift in diet could sound a death knell for popular nesting grounds of barnacle geese,
eider ducks, and glaucous gulls, researchers warn this month in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution.
When he was preparing to paint his
spectacled eider, Joe also traveled to Ottawa to peek at rare stuffed specimens in a museum.
One observer reported 75,000
eiders passing the Yukon Delta on one day.
As the boat moves closer, the rearguard
of eiders, snowy - white and black drakes and drab, brown hens patters clumsily across the surface, their wings, set well astern on their bodies, revving up until finally they get up above the waves.
The search
for eider can be a miserable experience, but Ransom Kelley makes it comfortable and rewarding
Some, such as the penguin family, do virtually nothing but go to sea, while others, like certain ducks, seem to toy with the idea, with a handful of species, such as
king eider and velvet scoter, actually...
Holy Holle, Mother Winter, Shakes
her eider till it flutters, Till the ticking frees its feathers, Drifting, shifting into snowflakes, Soft as swansdown, slowly falling, Blanketing the world in whiteness.
The eider shooter may also get some good shooting at coots or old squaws and on rare occasions at harlequins, as beautifully colored as the freshwater wood duck.
The eiders — American and Northern — are the largest of the North American ducks, and the hardiest.
By the time the decoy trawl is set and the Canard Noir is anchored 35 yards away against the ledge, small flocks of
eiders, flushed by lobster boats, begin to fly back in.
Eiders, Kelley explains, can carry off enough shot to sink most ducks.
Ponds in the Barrow Peninsula also serve as a major food source and nesting habitat for migratory birds, including certain waterfowl on the threatened species list, such as the spectacled
eider (Somateria fischeri) and Steller's eider (Polysticta stelleri).
He has observed polar bears eating more than 200 eggs in 2 hours, and last year no chicks or eggs of any species — barnacle geese,
eiders, and glaucous gulls — survived.
This coat was a gem, literally like wearing
an eider - down quilt!
People of a Feather (Unrated) Eco-documentary examining the threat posed to the Inuit nation's as well as
the eider duck's ways of life in the Arctic by massive hydroelectric dams powering much of eastern North America.
The UNESCO designation was awarded due to the unique interaction between
the eider duck and the island population.
Headphones played the original interviews and sound tracks that included sounds of rigging creaking,
eider ducks, and rain falling.
One observer reported 75,000
eiders passing the Yukon Delta on one day.
Certain points on migration routes are known as «
eider passes.»